New things this week....

During the Heart of the Matter homeschool conference, I listened to many wonderful speakers that helped me take a turn on our educational system at our home.  The beauty of homeschooling is flexibility and working with the individual needs of each child!  Well we are going to start home therapy with the Dianne Craft system.  It's called Brain integration therapy and it helps to get both sides of the brain communicating properly with each other again.  So as we are waiting on the new therapy books to arrive, I have toned down and hidden "CORE" skills in school work each day.  There will not be copywork involved to stress the boys out, so our new handwriting curriculum is on hold for a couple months.  There is will be a lot of hands-on skills and daily living skills incorporated (Montessori style learning).  Already the kids are learning to fold laundry, sweep and mop the floors, wipe up the sinks, dust bookshelves and vacuum, and our first official "CHORE HOUR" actually worked out well, with only one small flaw of Caty (who is potty training) forgetting to go to the bathroom and had an accident:(...in my purse---yes gross!!  My purse was sitting in the living room and she was standing beside of it and got my purse in the process...go figure!

Some changes and additions...For our Brayden (my schedule and figures) I have an actual breakdown of each day for him. I even wrote him up his own schedule yesterday.  We didn't do too bad sticking to it either! 

I bought some various size nuts and bolts at the hardware to work with for fine motor skills.  It was suggested as an extra activity for the brain integration therapy also. 

We started our new Spelling curriculum.  Joey will fly through this because he understand phonics well and spells well.  But it was suggested to really start at the basics.  Brayden who spent 3 years in public school learning phonics...had a hard time yesterday with the basic letter sounds.  He does not get the phonics as well.  I think he will do well with this too.  Right now hardly any writing and I can adjust the writing amount for most of it.  They can use premade letter tiles instead of writing even.  So far really like this.  But I'll let you know in a few weeks.

We are having Dr Seuss week.  This is for Lydia, but the boys will do it too.  Joey is having difficulty writing his letters properly again.  So it will be a great reminder for him.  This will be another therapy suggestion for them.

I don't think I posted this, but this little activity cost like $3.00 and is just cheap washclothes and a small basket from the Dollar Tree.  Great practice for life skills.  The kids all like it.

These are part of all the kids workboxes from Caty through Joey & Brayden.  The boys were working on the Pasting projects yesterday.  It's not the depth of the work, but the ability to use the scissors in a more difficult manner.  They felt accomplished at an easy activity being completed and I was happy at their attention to cutting on the lines.

I saw this in one of Erica's workboxes at Confessions of a Homeschooler.  It's great for Caty.  I'm sure they'll all end up using it in some way!

I love Kohl's!!  Got these in the fall and saved them hidden in storage for this week!  Very excited to get these out tomorrow for Dr. Seuss week.

Found these at Barnes and Noble.  Brayden loves puzzle books and Joey loves paper folding projects.  Do you know if you show your Homeschool Letter from the School district you get the Educators Discount of 20% off any products you will be using in your classroom (even bargain books)!!

This is just some of the things we will be incorporating this week.  We will also be using our sewing kits and lacing cards alot.  They will set the timer and work on those projects.  I will share more also about how we are adjusting Teaching textbooks to make it a little easier for the boys to handle.  I am experimenting though this week to see how it goes before I post that.